RAW not so good??

[photoTexas]

I told told by "the Man" a guy I know at apple that photoshop USM does a lot better job of sharpening than the raw converter.. And try that layer trick I just told you about... I am starting to use it....

[ QUOTE ]
Open a RAW image.... next to settings click on the arrow and go to preferences, change the first to sidecar.xmp file so your data travels with you and change sharpening to preview only. Sharpen in photoshop at the end. Also try merging all layers onto a new layer, doing a high pass filter at about a 2 on it, then changing it to soft light... now how do you like those apples?


[/ QUOTE ]

Well,... thank you very much... The settings part with the sharpening did make a diference...however, I barely know anything about working with layers.. I just know enough to type my name on them, change the style, move it to where I want to..and flatten it all down.. honestly, that's it.. I probably need to do a little catching up at this point but I'll bookmark your suggestions for future reference..

Thanks a ton for your help! [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

JP

well thank you for your replies here... I believe that most of my trouble here is my lack of knowledge of how to use PS.. I am going to have to study up on it.. perhaps take a course in it..or something... the books that I have aren't the best in explaining it to me either.. I'm the type of learner who learns by watching and doing.....reading text puts me to sleep..

Thank you again!

JP

[gregkdavis]

I've only shot digital a couple of times but I've learned two things.
One---Narrow exposure latitude!
--------- I have to be more on target than I do with transparencies.
Two --- calibrate calibrate calibrate! automate and batch process RAW to TIFF.

Because I do a lot of print work ( everything is calibrated to 56K).
All my pallets and color scripts are planned in advance.

I just burn my RAW files to CD for archival purposes and use my Tiffs for post
production work.

Photoshop is cool but you have to study it. I would recommend those classroom
in a book series Adobe prints.

Greg.

[jburian]

Since getting Pixel Genius's PK Sharpener, I shoot everything (RAW) with sharpening turned off in the camera. I do the initial RAW conversion in Nikon Capture, it seems to do a slightly better job than PS CS. Once in PS, I use PK Sharpener with awesome results. It consists of three seperate sharpening steps that are fine-tuned to your specific needs. The Creative Sharpening can be applied with brushes if you'd like which allows you to selectively sharpen areas in the picture. This software is definitely worth checking out. Here's a link to their site... Photo Kit Sharpener

Jeff

[R_Fredrick_Smith]

Often discussions of RAW turn into a war of words. I use Raw part of the time and JPG, the rest. How do I decide? I depends on the lighting. If I have to shoot fast and the light is changing fast and I don't have time to do custom white balance, then I shoot RAW. If I am doing product photography I always shoot RAW since you often need to enhance part of the photo quite a bit especially when doing wide black to white ranges. But if you shoot a properly white balance well exposed JPG, then it will look just as good as the RAW equivalent (all things else being equal). Sometimes it can be puzzling though to know which is better ...



Cheers,
rfs

Cheers,
rfs

Thanx Jeff.. I'm looking into that right now..

I like the idea of haveing selective control.. Is there a "general" setting that you like to you that you could recommend for the overall picture? [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

JP

Great points...thank you!

JP

[dynamike]

That is awesome!!!

Thanks so much for the tip!

Mike

[CaptainKen]

JP
There is an interesting article in Photoshop user Magazine Jan/Feb issue regarding using camera raw to save highlights. It’s to difficult to explain here, but basically you open the camera raw dialog twice. Lower the exposure enough in one of the images to bring back detail in the highlight area and click ok. Once you have two PS images open, choose the move tool (V), hold down the shift key and drag it onto the lighter image. Next hold down the Option key or PC alt key and click the layer mask icon at the bottom of the layers palette, it’s the circle in a square. The article recommends selecting a soft edged brush with 25% opacity. Set the foreground color to white, click on the darker highlights mask to make it active and paint white over the areas that had no details in the highlights. If you haven’t used layers mask before painting with white reveals what is underneath, painting with black conceals the bottom layer so if you reveal to much while painting with white just change the foreground color to black and paint back some black. I think of painting with white on a black mask the same as erasing the mask to reveal the bottom image. I probably was way to brief to make any sense but if you got it great, if not send me a note or call and I’ll fill in any holes if this sounds like something that would be useful.
Ken